Oh My Stars

Chiron: Unappetizing But Highly Nourishing

(This is part one of a two-part look at the role of Chiron in the birth chart. If you don’t like that, well… Chiron doesn’t rule “good times,” but it’s certainly necessary.)

I was sitting around last night contemplating my woes in my usual manner — by distracting myself by binge-watching Justified — when the door bell rang. A pizza delivery car was idling outside. Not having ordered a pizza, but with a professional astrologer’s keen instincts for a free meal, I answered the door. Much to my surprise, the pizza was being delivered by no less than Chiron the Centaur himself.

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“This must be an awkward moment for you” Chiron said.

“You’re telling me,” I replied. “I didn’t order a pizza, and I’m broke.”

“I didn’t mean that. I mean, you’ve had this Beliefnet gig for a while and still haven’t written much about me.”

I felt myself blush a little, something that doesn’t happen much any more. “Well, you know, the things you represent aren’t all that lighthearted, and I like to keep it that way. Besides, the emotional issues you rule are kind of hard to get a handle on in a brief blog entry. You know –”

Chiron interrupted. ” ‘I’ll tell you when you get hit by the truck, you figure out how you feel about it.’ I know. It’s one of your favorite lines.”

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I set the pizza down on the coffee table. “Look, I realize that the functions you represent are vital to the counseling process. Really, I do. I just have a hard time seeing the practical use of you in a reading sometimes. It’s not like a nice solid Uranus transit squaring natal Mars screwing up your blood pressure.”

“Isn’t Sun square Chiron on the Midheaven one of the tighter aspects in your chart?” Chiron asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “And that should make me some kind of expert if there was any sort of observable –”

“And aren’t you sitting around in the dark, doping yourself up with easy entertainment, feeling all bad about your existence, rather than dealing with things?”

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I glanced around. “I just haven’t changed the light bulb yet. Honest. So is this what you do now: go around handing out meals people can’t afford and didn’t ask for?”

Chiron trotted over to the pizza box and opened it. It had extra cheese, which almost managed to obscure the Brussels Sprouts, parsnips, and liverwurst toppings. I cringed.

“No.” Chiron replied. “I go around handing out what people really need, emotionally, whether they know it or not. And it’s free.”

The delivery car horn honked repeatedly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of stops to make this evening. I have a bucket of deep-fried childhood memories for a Virgo going cold.”

He paused to pat my shoulder reassuringly before he left.

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“Just remember: where it Hurts, there is Hope.”

The car horn honked impatiently as he left. I looked out the window one last time, and in the dark I was barely able to make out the features of my great-grandfather behind the wheel — the one I never met, but who nonetheless taught me that no matter how bad life feels at times, things could always be worse.

I sat down and started to eat. It was awful at first, but I soon realized just how hungry I was… and, miraculously, I was hungry for something like this. I contemplated the Human Condition: wounded, struggling things making out way through life causing more injury to ourselves and others, and on occasion — if we’re both wise and lucky — mopping up more pain than we leave behind. And I thought about another year of more of the same, for me.

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And I thought about a malformed and misbegotten thing, half man and half horse, who nonetheless taught The Gods Themselves lessons in healing and nobility.

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